With Eyes Wide Open: Formalizing Community and Social Control Intervention in Offender Reintegration Programmes

In assimilating deterrence and restorative justice concepts, community justice models demand that the community, formal justice agencies, and the offender share the responsibility of successful reintegration. The U.S. Justice Department, through the guidance of the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), developed eight pilot RPI sites. The States with RPI sites had to agree to build a re-entry infrastructure that emphasized the collaborative involvement of corrections, probation/parole, law enforcement, victim organizations, treatment agencies, housing agencies, and other community groups. Although the OJP provided technical assistance to the sites, they received no Federal funds for either planning or operations. Each site was responsible for defining, developing, and implementing a partnership suitable to the sociopolitical environment of the State and selected locality for the initiative. Reflecting some of the principles of intensive aftercare and other integrated service models, the best RPI sites have attempted to implement programs that are based in a system of unrestricted case management in which the collective efforts of justice agencies, service providers, family, and other community supports are devoted to the enhancement of the offender's accountability and productivity in the community. The new model presents a research agenda that focuses on the individual-community interaction and its impact on individual criminal behavior. The available research on informal social controls shows promise for the future, but it is not clear whether the nature of the informal social control personally affects differential outcomes. Even more critical is the issue of whether the linkage between the formal and informal social controls can, overall, affect the rate of offenders who successfully reintegrate into the community. Abstract courtsey of the National Criminal Justice Reference Service, www.ncjrs.org.